From The "Horse's Mouth"..When Oregon OHV/ATV Stickers Are Required

After carefully listening to many, many folks voice when you must have an Oregon OHV/ATV sticker on your motorcycle I ended up hearing dozens of differing views.

The Oregon OHV/ATV Program is administered by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department...the head of the ATV/OHV Program is Mr. John Lane.

Today I had a very informative conversation on the phone with Mr. Lane. I found him to be professional, well spoken and straight talking. Here are answers to my questions:

#1 Does my Oregon street licensed motorcycle require a OHV/ATV sticker on all dirt roads or all public lands.

Answer: No.

#2 When does my motorcycle require "The Sticker"?

Answer: For my motorcycle the Sticker is required if I ride on paths/trails/roads/areas that are designated for OHV use only.

#3 Do all public entities post their OHV Only routes.

Answer: Unfortunately, no. Each jurisdiction manager can vary the approach to posting. All should post, but some do not.

So that is from the person in charge of the Program. Regardless of what you think of the Program, Mr. Lane was a no BS breath of fresh air to talk to.

Did I buy the $10.50/2 year Sticker?

Yes. Why? I don't deal well with minor enforcement personnel talking out their ass, but with the authority to arrest. And I learned long ago if you "mess with the bull, you might get the horn"....

Stay safe out there!

Thank you.
I think it's a double tax thing when one has a licensed bike & OR requires more.

I didn't realize there was any confusion on OHV stickers.

I also didn't know that license fees go to OHV maintenance in OR.

I buy one for each bike every year, whether I use 'em or not.
The proceeds go toward trail maintenance, signage, etc.

kinda like buying a duck stamp even though I no longer hunt.

Ya could have been just me....but everyone I asked gave me a different "when do you have to have one"..

I am with PM on this ...after Mr. Lane enlightened me that the money did go to maintain trails...well, I to will be buying them to support that..

Hey, PM, what was that you told me about riding some pavement [Hwy 21] and not all dirt? Sorry you got clocked...glad it wasn't more serious..

I think OR does a better job of keeping the funds separate (i.e., they don't raid the cookie jar) than WA does.

It seems like when trails are closed in OR OHV areas, new ones replace them.

That is why we too, put them on all our bikes. Including those that are plated. Most states share reciprocity so we look at it as cheap insurance. We have been checked in OR. and CO. UT. WA and ID and in every instance have been told we are law abiding folks.

I hear that is about to change----something about using OHV fees for noxious plant/weed control

They have found the piggy bank

that would make no sense at all, since it is the horse people and pack animal folks who import the alien seed!
ever seen an alfalfa field WITHOUT weeds?

Oh, you said "weeds"...not "weed"..

Make sense? Ya right! Get well Dude...

Better safe than sorry.

in Oregon, your bike also needs a Forest Pass Sticker if you park it at designated (posted) trailheads or parking areas. You get one with your regular mirror hanging Forest Pass, if you ask them for it.

I know, who's parking? You're busy riding. Then you don't need one, unless you are stealth/redneck camping in the woods, is my unofficial understanding.

I now buy one of each. Forest pass for the right front fork, OHV pass for the left front fork. The Shadow don't need no stinkin' OHV Pass, so it just gets a FP. We like to ride bikes to trail heads and hike.

Yes, the OR OHV sticker is a deal..especially considering the shear amount of places to ride. Just coming back from a vacation in New Hampshire, it cost more than $60 bucks for the off road sticker for each bike from Massachusetts we were riding. The riding areas were a joke compared to what I have in my backyard in the Tillamook Forest. $60 bucks...and we weren't even checked

I also didn't think there was much confusion. If you wanna ride trails; OHV sticker. If you wanna ride roads within an OHV area and you have no plate; OHV sticker. Or like many here, I have one on my V-strom even though it doesn't hit the trails much. The $10.50 donation to me is peanuts for what we have.

That's no change; they already do. At the Morrow Co OHV park.

I read this thread, others, and it seems the confusion about street legal bikes on Oregon trails remains confused. It usually ends up "I just get one anyway" but the real answer is buried. Reading the Oregon ATV/OHV rules I see why. They do not seem to ever mention street legal bikes, only non-street legal bikes and ATV/OHVs.

So I just quickly read the Oregon ATV regulations, and in all cases they talk about OHVs and what applies to them. Their Class 3 OHV definition describes a non street legal bike under 600lbs. They never specifically mention street legal vehicles in the rules that I could find. They mention when a OHV might be made street legal and when they might be allowed to ride on a "street" or highway and the penalites for not following the rules. Lots of penalties.

The rules talk about OHVs only. The confusion pops up I think because street legal vehicles (not OHVs) have no restrictions - they meet all safety and federal emmissions requirements. OHVs are permitted to have lesser safety equipment, lesser emissions controls, and non DOT tires for example. The OHV rules are designed to describe where exceptions to street legal vehicle requirements apply and the permits required to have those exceptions. Street legal bikes can go anywhere motorized bike traffic can go, trails included.

So my non-lawyer interpretation is that Oregon is the same as Washington, Utah, and virtually every other state and national forest. If a road or trail allows motorized 2 wheel or more traffic, any street legal bike can ride on it without an OHV sticker. If you are not street legal, then you need a permit.

Now getting an OHV sticker to support the cause is a separate and worthy thing to do. But as far as the rules go, from what I read, the rules do not require an OHV sticker for street legal bikes to ride on the trails, that is the same as WA and Utah. As a dual sport rider touching only on occasion in other states, it is good to know that I can pass through a trail area unmolested on my street legal vehicle.

No. In Oregon, this is not true.


There are trails that are explicitly designated* as OHV trails. You are required to have an OHV sticker in order to ride on them. It does not matter whether your vehicle has a license plate or not. The sticker is different depending on what type of vehicle (bike/quad/4x4) you have.


*Unfortunately, "explicitly designated" means that somewhere in some office it was decided that a particular road or trail was an OHV trail. It doesn't mean that the trail has a marking at the trailhead. Fortunately, I've only seen enforcement in places where it was obvious.

This


And........................when I go to the dunes with the Blazer (which is street legal), I need to have a US Forest Pass just for the use of the area, then if I want to drive in the sand to camp, make a rescue or sometimes just to get a good parking spot, I need to have a ORV permit and of course a flag.

Sometimes that makes me feel like that get you coming and going, but like other have said, $10 iis a pretty good deal

Noxious weed guy here - I work for the USFS in the summers doing the kill noxious weeds thing.

Really, the biggest "spreader" of the bad forbes are our favorite toys, the two wheeled ones and especially the four wheeled kind (shit now I have this bold thing going and I don't know how to turn it off). The super bad part is that they take the seeds for miles and miles. AND they take them where it's really hard to kill the results.

Sure, the horsies spread a lot of bad things in their poop, but in a lot of the places where we ride "certified" feed is required and it is pretty lacking in the bad stuff. 'course there's always that outlaw fringe.

4r

Two couple of us folks from Idaho are coming to Oregun in a couple of weeks. We're bringing the motor homes and trailering two bikes each.

We each have BMW GS's with license plates and no off road stickers. We also are each bringing a (somewhat - Idaho version) plated dual sport with license plates AND Idaho off road stickers. Mine's a BRP and his is a plated 450 WR. We've got brake lites, head lites, at least one mirror, etc.

We're planning on staying in Florence and riding both lots of back roads and maybe playing in the sand dunes. Or doing some fairly serious single/double track if we can find it and the ladies aren't looking.

First of all, are our Idaho ORV stickers OK in place of an Oregun one?? Can we play on the back (dirt) roads without an ORV sticker (from this discussion I'm thinking this is OK)?

4r

Reciprocity
http://www.oregon.gov/OPRD/ATV/reciprocity.shtml

I think you need flags for the dunes but I can't find the requirements.